Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Left Handed Guitar Lessons

By: Alan Fuller

If you are one of the 10% of the world's population who are left
handed then you will be quite used to the fact that a lot of
things in life can be a little more of a problem for you than
they probably will be for the other 90% who are right handed.
Left handed guitar lessons will likely be one of those
challenges for you.

That really should not be allowed to stop you though. You
perhaps even have the upper hand. There has been a lot of
research carried out at University College London which now
suggests that folks with a left handed orientation are quite
likely to be high achievers. Prominence in the realm of sport
and the arts is specifically noticeable. Embarking on some left
handed guitar lessons is quite probably then no problem.The
important factor is to be sure you have a
really good guitar tutor.

There are many examples of massively talented left handed guitar
players to take example from. Jimmy Hendrix, Sir Paul McCartney,
Tony Lommi and Mark Knopfler who is left handed but plays his
guitar right handed, to name but a few.

At the start your left handed guitar lessons will ask you a
question. Should I play guitar left handed or should I try right
handed? What kind of peculiar question is that you may well ask?
But if you look around perhaps as many as half of the otherwise
left handed guitar players really play their guitars right
handed. It will be contingent on what degree of left handedness
you have. Just what is the level of your handedness dominance?

If you are beginning from scratch then the consensus is that you
really should try playing right handed. There is good reason for
this You will find that almost everything for guitar is geared
up for the right handed player.That applies to the guitar itself
as well as most printed and recorded learning materials.

It is worth staying with this for two or three weeks but if
after a fair try you still find a problem in either strumming
right handed or fretting the proper string left handed then move
on to your left handed guitar lessons.

Many students starting to play the guitar find that at first
they get very sore
guitar fingers! If your fingers start to crack or hurt it is
best to stop playing for a while to let your sore fingers heal.
They soon toughen up as you continue to play your guitar..

If you can manage to buy or are able to find a left handed
guitar great, if not you can flip a right handed guitar and
restring it in reverse, thickest string at the top. Not the best
way but by far the cheapest alternative and if you see pictures
of Jimmy Hendrix and his guitar - that's how he preferred to
play it!

For your left handed guitar lessons the materials used are just
the same as for right handed players. It is how you translate
that information that will be different as you will reverse the
visual features as you come across them. Left handed players do
not normally seem to have difficulty with this and will absorb
the material with the same rapidity as their right handed
counterparts.

Elements of any left handed guitar lessons which use video
recordings will not present any difficulty as to a left handed
player what they are viewing is an exact mirror image of what
they will be playing.

Particularly for those interested in left handed guitar lessons
a comprehensive home study course makes a great deal of sense.
As it could possibly take a little more time to first get the
hang of chord position and reading tablature then as an
alternative to normal face to face lessons a home study course
can give you the ability to repeat each lesson as many times as
you find necessary.

The question often gets asked can you self teach guitar from a home study course? The
number of such courses that are purchased today certainly
suggests that the probability of success is there for those that
take action and give it a try!

As soon as you sense the time is right and the opportunity is
there then if you have been playing a flipped guitar replace it
with a dedicated left hand model. Now with a new guitar your
left handed guitar lessons will move on in leaps and bounds and
your enjoyment in learning and playing it will skyrocket too!

About the author:
GuitarAccord.com is a website dedicated to the promotion of
guitar learning. Looking at a diversity of guitar styles we
recommend appropriate methods of learning to play the guitar. If
you are looking to start playing the guitar then start by
looking at http://www.guitaraccord.com where you will find the
best courses available to you today.